Do you just accept or decline invitations from family or do you ask if you can bring someone or have a conversation about occasion?

😂 I think I'm quite lazy, whilst I love entertaining, I'm also very happy that family and friends visiting crack on and get themselves snacks, drinks etc - even better when they get something for me whilst they are there! 😂

In my in-laws family universe.

When the kitchen is closed, the kitchen is closed 😂

70% of voters think YABU but you’re still not seeing how rude your behaviour has been. I am not sure why you bothered posting.

There's something really mismatched between you and your sister in law. I don't know how you can get to some more common ground.

But an overheard conversation at a memorial event might not be the best starting point.

Can you invite them to you?

Is it worth saying 'x is part of my family/ household. If they're not invited I won't be coming'? You can frame this as logistics or as disrespect of your family structure or both.

I 100% would clarify an invite / explain we can only come if x who is with us can come too. Etc. no issue either way if x can’t come. Also this happens in reverse. Family even say, can you feed me on y day because. It’s family. All very odd to have an issue with this.

I agree it's a strong boundary but given that they have form, you trying to repeatedly override it is probably very irritating to them. But slagging you off as she did is just wrong. Are you planning on raising it with your brother?

If a sibling invites me to a family 'thing' I am assuming its me DH and DFS, our DS would probably be invited separate to us as they are a family unit. I wouldnt ask ud just reply yes we will all be there.
If we had previous fc coming over I would check it was OK to bring them along because its an extra body to feed.
There has been occasions its been a 'female ' do, hen afternoon tea, smellies/make up parties ( long ago) where it was clear it was just for the women to attend.

Aye, sounds like the SIL has been fighting a quiet battle with her MIL and SIL's trying to organise things their way for years.
Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. #team SIL

You are the one that persists when you KNOW she doesn't want extra people. If she really is printing out invitations, it is clear who is invited over 🤷‍♀️

Despite this always being her 'way', good or bad and for whatever reason, it sounds like you constantly push against her wishes/boundaries/whatever this is. That does make your family difficult because it really is an accept or decline situation. Which experience already has told you.

It absolutely does fall into that category for the SIL, on the occasions where formal invites are issued. She’s made that apparent. Whether that’s normal or not depends, I imagine, on your social circle.

My family have informal gatherings, but we also have formal ones. Even with the informal gatherings though we don’t start trying to add people on the day, or just turn up with them.

I wouldn’t consider bringing your son or the step child as inviting extras but outside of that, it’s pretty rude to ask can you bring extras at the last minute.

I guess that is why they have started issuing formal invitations. TBH, I don’t understand the confusion with the term word processing here. I’m sure most people on here have used MS Word or Google Docs, both of which are word processors.

Yes, it’s very clear that an invite is something to be accepted or declined, it’s not the beginning stage of negotiations. If you think it’s rude, then decline.

I would agree with this, if this were an invitation to a wedding or something, but surely you must see that going to a sibling's house for a meal doesn't really fall into that category ?
The OP is talking about her SiL inviting them for a meal.

Surely we can't be the only family where that means a WhatsApp saying "Do you fancy coming round for a BBQ on Sunday?" or "I'm happy to host a meal for Easter - does the Saturday or Sunday work better for you?" It is a completely different scenario from a formal invitation. I am so surprised that more people aren't questioning that (including the written / printed invitation from SiL). Do others really think that is normal ???

I mean, I'm old, we would have invited each other by making telephone calls when I was a young adult, and naturally, you'd clarify any queries during that call.

Yes. They were very innovative back in the day. They replaced a lot of typewriters before computers were commonplace.

Back in the 80’s I was part of a team coding a word processor for a computer. Sadly, it no longer exists.

They were amazing though. Having WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) for creating documents was so much easier than the markup language we used prior to that where you had to start and end each paragraph, header, etc. with a code.

A word processor is a specific type of application.

From Microsoft: “What is a word processor?
A word processor is a device or software program capable of creating, storing, and printing text documents. It allows users to write and modify text, display it on a screen, save it electronically, and print it out.”

It’s clear what you meant by formal printed invitations stating the names of those invited.

The point is that this type of formal invitation makes it very clear who is and isn’t invited. It also sets the tone that the event is formal not a drop in open house.

You have ignored the clear boundaries a formal invite sets and treated it as a drop in open house and invited others - that is where the issue is.

The plot thickens.

Are you doing research for a PHD or something? What a boring subject to be interested in.

if a sibling is in an established relationship with a partner who has children, of course they should be invited as a family unit. Perhaps your mistake has been not picking up on the clues your mean spirited SIL thinks differently. Is that the reason for typing out invitations with names on?

if the choices are accept or decline at least everyone knows what to do going forward.

The sandwich request would be tricky for me only because I wouldn’t have the right food in outside the meal I had planned - it would have been my work lunch the next day! I’d probably have still given it to him but admit I’d be annoyed about that.

When I got a boyfriend my mother still did not want to invite him for the third year we were together, and I just said I can't make it to Christmas then- she was very angry and tried to use it as leverage to try and get me to marry (she was married 5 times and was absolutely obssessed with it) I said no if we can't have Christmas as a couple here, we will have Christmas as a couple elsewhere.
She had had long enough to come to terms with it, plus a few years previously she had had her boyfriend of only a few weeks with us for Christmas, two Christmases apart was more than enough.

So you know who is and isn’t invited. You should accept or decline on that basis.

Really you are being a CF here.

@demesneDame

What you think should be acceptable isn't relevant. If SiL and presumably your DB think that only the people named on the invite should attend, period end of discussion, then that is their prerogative. As is who they consider 'family', right or wrong. And if you know this (and if nothing else, you do now) it would be rude to call about or show up with 'extras'. The only 'fault' I can find with SiL/DB is that they didn't find some way to make this clear early on.

If you want to issue invites and then happily get calls about add ons, that's fine too.

Would I call one of my DSs or my siblings and ask for 'extras'? Yes to a certain extent, because that is the relationship we have. But also, I know them well enough to pretty much know what their answer would be and I wouldn't ask if I wasn't 100% sure it'd be OK.

Yes, it’s very clear that an invite is something to be accepted or declined, it’s not the beginning stage of negotiations. If you think it’s rude, then decline.

It doesn’t matter what you think she ‘should‘ be okay with as a close family member. It doesn’t change the fact that she isn’t okay with it.

It’s also her home, not just ‘your brother’s home’. It isn’t something you’re entitled to access on the basis of your sibling also owning it.

What does your brother say about all this? Presumably he’s in charge of the invites too? Does he know you were all called ‘fuckers’?

Your SIL is obviously very rigid in her hosting, that's obvious from the named invites. I can understand asking once or twice if other people could be included, but I don't understand why you would keep asking when she kept saying no. It sounds like she finds it stressful that people keep asking her. It's not clear when you offer to bring things if this offer is made at the last minute or not? If it is I can understand that might feel disorganised and chaotic. If you're doing it soon after receiving the invite she's just being odd. I do agree that it's out of order that the step child doesn't get invited. I think that whole family should just make a point of declining the invitations.

I think you have confused everybody by the way you tried to be cryptic in your opening post.

I also think you've confused most of us (or your SiL has) with the concept of anyone typing/ printing out a formal invitation to go round for a meal at their house. That is beyond odd.

Like others have said on this thread, if my SiL or Sis or DB or DBiL wants to invite us for a meal or drinks or BBQ or anything else, they will message us on WhatsApp. They will say "Do you both want to come round for..." or they will say "Do you and the dc want to come round for....." If there were ever any slight ambiguity dh or I would say "Do you mean us 2 or the kids as well?"
If we had been planning to see Gran that day, we'd have said "We're planning to see Gran that day - shall we bring her or do you want to get together a different day?" and either answer would be fine.

Unless we were hosting a £100 a head meal at a wedding, or other very formal occasion, then newish partners, stepchildren etc would all obviously be included to an informal do such as a meal at our house or a buffet after a christening. What difference would it make ? How else would they begin to get to know us, and us them ?

Re the 'collecting your ds from DoE' - that is a perfectly normal situation with a normal family. You'd been clear he wouldn't be there for the meal, but what kind of weird behaviour is it to begrudge a starving teen something at that point ? I just can't imagine resenting feeding my nephew something on toast or a sarnie in those circumstances.

Your SiL sounds absolutely batshit.

Y are definitely NBU, but I suspect lots of people replying before you added the later information / examples wouldn't have been clear what you were saying.